Tea For Two, Hold The Politics: Can Opposites Overcome?

My partner died 18 months ago and I recently joined Match.com, spinning the high-tech wheel of romance, which after a couple of misses brought a hot if potentially flawed prospect.

The first man I met for coffee was a former Episcopalian priest turned agnostic. He wants to start a new religion. I wondered if I was hearing right or if I'd fallen down a rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland.

The next man had lived in Alaska most of his life. His hobby was hiking. I dubbed him Mountain Man because he meant to take me on a real hike in the mountains, here in Albuquerque. I can see peaks of the Sandia Mountains from my patio, but I don't climb them. I grew up riding subways in New York — not scaling mountains.

After I said I have a fear of heights, Mr. Alaska realized I was not going to join him in the mountains and quickly packed up all his trail maps.

The next man I met online proved much more promising.

He moved to Albuquerque to finish college, stayed to get a master's degree and never left. He moved to New Mexico from Buffalo. I moved from Connecticut, but I was born and raised in Brooklyn. Despite coming from different ends of New York, we have a lot in common: classical music, opera, ballet, movies, books, theater. We even share a similar sense of humor.

There is one glitch.

I'm a die-hard Democrat. He is not only a member of the tea party, he is vice president of the local chapter. When he told me that Democrats, as well as Republicans, are members of the tea party, I was tempted to tell him that a Democrat would only join the tea party if he, or she, were a spy.

Meanwhile, emails flew back and forth. We discovered that our favorite composers are Mozart and Puccini; we cry whenever we see or hear "La Boheme," and even though we are both mediocre pianists we continue to play for our own enjoyment. With all that, we made a date for lunch. As I prepared for our rendezvous, I clicked on Match.com to view his profile again. I had forgotten what he looked like. There, staring me in the face under "Politics" were the words "Ultra Conservative." I did a double-take. How could I have missed that? Coincidentally, I had just sold an essay to a magazine about a socialist camp I attended as a 9-year-old in the 1950s.

I sent an email to Mr. Tea Party asking him if our differing politics would be a problem for him. I guess I was really asking myself that question. Without waiting for an answer, I canceled lunch.

His reply was lengthy and well written. He wasn't trying to recruit me like Mr. Alaska, with his hiking, but said he really wanted to meet me and hoped I would agree to meet as planned and listen to his political beliefs. He also hoped we could work it out.

We ended up having a five-hour lunch! We did not discuss politics once. It's not that we forgot. We simply ignored the elephant and the donkey in the room. We talked about music, theater, books and our favorite travel destinations.

The next evening, he came to my house with a DVD, "The Imitation Game." We loved the film and discussed it afterward. This time he specifically asked me how I view the tea party. "It's anti-abortion," I said, "anti-gays and anti-gun control." He explained that he does not hold those beliefs. I was afraid to ask him if he favors Ted Cruz or Rand Paul for president, especially now that Jeb Bush and John McCain are considered too liberal for the Republican right wing.

We agreed to disagree and continue dating.

I hope that the coming presidential election with all its hoopla will not become too difficult a time for us.

I fear it's too late to end the relationship. I've become emotionally involved, so I hope we can continue to happily agree to disagree.